PUBLIC TRUST

Corruption erodes the public’s trust in the armed forces and, in some cases, the government as a whole. Fighting corruption helps militaries to keep the public’s trust where they have it, and build it where they don’t. Just one major scandal can deeply undermine the public’s perception of the armed forces, and it can take years to rebuild their reputation. Pervasive small-scale corruption—for instance, having to pay bribes to the police—affects the daily life of individuals and can build resentment in a population.

Pride of the civilian and military staff in their service is seriously degraded when the staff knows of corruption in their leadership. In some cases, a poor institutional reputation brought about by corruption can make it more difficult for defence and security establishments to recruit the best individuals, further harming the sectors’ capabilities and reputation. A lack of public trust in the armed forces and government may encourage ordinary people to look for other sources of protection— including patronage networks, tribal networks, organised crime, and even insurgencies.

GOVERNMENTAL INTEGRITY

The defence sector can act as a concentrator of corrupt behaviour in government. Funds can be siphoned from the sector by the ruling elite to finance election campaigns or for personal gain. In this way, corruption in the defence sector can keep a corrupt infrastructure of middlemen, accountants, and lawyers in business.

The government exists to serve its people, and defence and security establishments to protect them. When defence and security establishments are corrupt, the integrity of the government is undermined as leaders abuse the power entrusted in them for personal enrichment. The government loses legitimacy, public trust, and often fails to fulfill its primary aim. Because of the high importance of defence and security, corruption in this sector has a wide-ranging impact on the government as a whole.

ECONOMIC & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Corruption is costly and a waste of a country's scarce resources. Whether through artificially inflated defence budgets, unnecessary procurements, payment of 'ghost' soldiers, corrupt privatisations, or asset sales, corruption in the defence sector represents the theft of public money which could be invested in more socially productive initiatives, contributing to the economic and social development of the country.

Defence and security are often expensive areas of the national budget, even when they are conducted with integrity. Corruption in defence and security can be an extremely costly drain on the national budget. Government money lost through defence and security corruption means less money to spend on things like health, education, infrastructure, and development.

SECURITY & DEFENCE

Corruption can fatally undermine security strategies and has a dramatic impact on the operational effectiveness of the military. Corruption is a hindrance to security and anti-terrorism policies, even contributing to regional and international instability.

The risk of corruption is the risk of troops being ill-equipped, of higher flows of illicit arms/drugs/human trafficking, of information being misused by organised crime or terrorist organisations, of unnecessary and wasteful expenditures. There are a myriad ways in which corruption harms the operational effectiveness of the military and threatens national security.

PEACEMAKING & PEACEKEEPING

International peace-making efforts often focus on the requirements of the key parties, rather than setting out a roadmap towards stability and a functioning state. This sets the stage for corruption issues to fall by the wayside or be seen as a governance issue, when in reality, they are central to the conflict and its resolution.

A critical element in the conflict resolution and/or immediate post-conflict phase is the role of the military. Some analysts have suggested that in dealing with corruption and associated organised crime, peacekeeping operations may need to serve as a vehicle for the delivery of wider state functions, such as border enforcement and crime fighting; a co-ordination mechanism for other actors, and a focal point for longer-term capacity building. In these circumstances the defence and security sectors, police and judiciary need special attention. This is not solely due to their key role in delivering sustainable state institutions, but also because in many cases they are likely to be better resourced than many other areas of government.

Peace-making and peacekeeping operations can be hampered by corruption. Corrupt activities can fund insurgencies, fueling instability and endangering peacekeeping troops. Corrupt activities by peacekeeping forces destroy their legitimacy and limit the operation’s effectiveness.

EXAMPLES

UNODC study: Afghans paid USD 2.5 billions in bribes in a year

The 2010 UNODC study 'Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as reported by the victims' reported that in a 12 month period, one out of two Afghans had to pay a bribe to a public official, and 25% of Afghans surveyed had to give one or more kickbacks to the police. In total, Afghans paid USD 2.5 billion in bribes in one year, which is equivalent to 23% of the country’s GDP.

The report states: “On a community level, corruption undermines faith in local government actors and strengthens local non-governmental structures that are not accountable to the people, to democratic structures or to the rule of law. On a national level, pervasive corruption undermines the entire sense of Afghanistan as a nation… Corruption is at the heart of all of the difficulties that Afghan people are encountering today, it is at the heart of Afghanistan's current challenges and instability, and it must be at the heart of all peace building efforts in Afghanistan.”

As the case of Afghanistan shows, the impact of defence and security corruption is huge, and its myriad effects are deeply intertwined. Corruption hampers people’s daily lives and debilitates economic development. Corruption creates a vast divide between the people and the state, and it is a major downfall as the country struggles to form a solid national identity. Corruption also has an immediate security impact: with 65% of respondents reporting that they “have lost trust in public services,” the incentive to look for services and protection in other bodies, like the Taliban or organised crime, is clear.

Uganda: Corruption fuels conflict & conflict fuels corruption

The hypothesis that corruption in the defence sector fuels violent conflict when it becomes entrenched in a security environment is difficult to verify, given the multifarious situations in which conflict exists. Nevertheless, experts working in the security sector in Africa have put their own experience behind this theory, and TI-DSP has spoken with several such practitioners. One example is Uganda, where corruption has had a devastating impact on the country's security establishments in the context of the protracted war in the country’s North against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – an impact that is likely to have exacerbated and prolonged the conflict in several ways.

The first is through the main players in the war having a corrupt interest in the conflict’s continuation. President Yoweri Museveni ensured the loyalty of his generals, including his own brother, through allowing corruption at the highest levels of the armed forces. Those fighting the rebellion, then, had a clear conflict of interest in that they had a material stake in the rebellion’s proliferation.

A second factor is the extent to which funds that should have been spent on, for example, necessary military equipment or training, were wasted through corruption. A third and related issue is the armed forces’ reception and use of faulty or unnecessary equipment as a result of corruption. A prominent example is the junk helicopter scandal, centred on Museveni’s brother Salim Saleh. Saleh reportedly received a commission of USD 800,000 when his own company purchased non-functioning military helicopters. Both of these factors demonstrate that corruption has prevented the armed forces from getting the proper equipment.

Ugandan officials are currently working with international stakeholders to improve procurement, and these efforts show promise in curbing some types of defence corruption.

Corruption & conflict as a ticket for lucre

The presence of defence corruption has been suggested as a factor in several conflicts. In Angola, high military spending provided considerable opportunities for corruption, with exploitation of resource deposits allowing the ruling party to buy, use, and resupply expensive weapon systems through a dense network of private companies and foreign governments. Corruption through personal favours and gifts, including so-called 'blood diamonds,' maintained this network. Similarly, in Nigeria, tension in the oil-rich Niger Delta is aggravated by the alleged theft of revenues by armed groups with government ties. Across the continent, corruption has exacerbated conflict and diminished opportunities for lasting peace.

Corruption in the armed forces is often embedded in the very fabric of a conflict, both in state militaries and non-state rebels. The common practice of military patronage through corruption ensures that military commanders have a stake in continued conflict. Corruption in conflict gives some stakeholders, especially those in power or even those who are able to hold limited power, the opportunity to enrich themselves, thereby acting as a disincentive to ending conflict. When leaders rely on corruption as a means of ensuring loyalty of the military, top officials benefit from the continuation of conflict. For these generals and top level officials, conflict is a ticket to wealth accumulation.

Sierra Leone: Getting anti-corruption right

Although its civil war would rage on until 2002, Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission was established by Act of Parliament in 2000, due to widespread recognition that corruption was a key factor perpetuating the conflict. It was a three-tiered structure aimed at curbing corruption, comprising prevention, public awareness-raising and investigations. However, the realities of a post-conflict environment were such that despite attempts to cast its net wide, the Commission was plagued by public distrust, an inadequate mandate, insufficient funding and a structure lacking genuine political independence. In order to remedy this situation and prevent Sierra Leone from descending back into armed conflict, the government was pushed to intensify its anti-corruption efforts. Consequently, the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) aimed to build wide stakeholder coalitions in the fight against corruption, and placed a particular emphasis on active partnership with civil society and the media.

Importantly, NACS also called for an overhaul of the Anti-Corruption Act. The resulting Anti-Corruption Act 2008 instituted an independent Anti-Corruption Commission, tasked with the investigation, prevention, prosecution and punishment of corruption—without recourse to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, as was previously the (faulty) case. Its remit covered individuals and institutions, both public and private. The resulting policy is notable for its far-reaching measures.